When not observing the Solstice seasons or special lunar happenings, I pull Tarot cards weekly to inspire practice that cultivates soul wisdom for readers of this blog as a group using the Gaian Tarot. You are invited to use the cards below to inspire your practice, and, if you like, share your reflections in the comments. You are also free to draw your own cards using these positions.
PATH: Use Pile 1 / Majors and Aces to pull a card for the question: What path would it best serve us to walk this week? GAIA, the WORLD invites us to walk this week on pathways of …
- Embracing all that is.
- Living out the unique contribution that you have to make to the world.
- Resting in a moment of perfection (even in an imperfect world).
- Receiving and honoring the blessings and the bounty of the world with delight.
PRACTICE: Use Pile 2 / numbered cards for this question: What practice(s) will best serve us to move along this path this week? THREE OF AIR invites us to practices such as …
- At the end of each day this week, write lists of your Consolations (the things that made you happy and offered fulfillment) and your Desolations (the things that made you sad or disconnected from the way you would like to be in the world). Look back on your lists at the end of the week to see if you find a pattern.
- Engage in a meditation where you tune into your heart, imagine what is pressing upon it or piercing it, feel the pain of it, imagine this pain as light, and then let the light flow through you.
- Journal to let your fears and worries flow out of you by writing them down, perhaps you honor them first and then find a way to let them go.
- Write in any of many forms that allow for the expression of emotion: for example, journaling, writing poetry, writing a letter to another person to express your true feelings (you may or may not want to send the letter).
POSTURE: Use Pile 3 / People cards for a question such as: What attitudes and behaviors will be most helpful to undertake this practice and walk with path? CHILD OF FIRE invites you to follow your path and practices with attitudes of ….
- Delight.
- Attending to your passions with new interest and zeal.
- Being “scave” (this is a word from Room by Emma Donnaghue made up by the five year old narrator Jack and his ma to describe the combining of scared and brave; you can be both scared and brave at the same time).
- Being open to all, without preconceived notions of what should be or happen.
- Bringing new light and energy into the dark places.
OVERALL MUSINGS:
Yoohoo, the World card! Joanna Powell Colbert, creator of the Gaian Tarot, says that this is the best of all possible cards to get in a reading. When I flipped it over, I said, “Yes!”
So it is a paradox to have the card that is the most sorrowful in the deck appear as the practice that will help us walk this World path. The iconic Rider Waite Smith version of this card, named the 3 of Swords, is three swords piercing a heart. Look closely at Joanna’s 3 of Air image and you will see that card tucked under the journal in which the man is writing. The Gaian Tarot does not ignore the sorrow of the 3 of Swords, but it points to a way through the obstacle: Feel, write, release.
The feelings want to be acknowledge even in their wild inchoate state. When we write, our mind helps us to bring an order, a flow to the feelings. This can help us understand them better and bring us into a more balanced relationship; the emotions no longer have to hijack you to get your attention. And this supports release of what you no longer need to carry. You can leave the difficult emotions on the page and shut the notebook.
To begin to meet great sorrow, we must be as “scave” as the Child of Fire. I love this word created by a novelist to let us see into the minds and hearts of her characters – and also to better know ourselves. I know there are times when you have been scared to do something and did it anyway. Yes, you have been scave.
Any kind of writing can help us practice walking the path of the World being scave. If you are not really a word person, I think that doodling would serve as well. And you choose whether to share what you get down on paper – or not.
I do happen to be a word person, a poet. So I receive this week’s cards with some extra specificity for me and my poetry tribe to dig deep inside and bring forth words and images that speak to hearts and souls. Because we are on a World path this week, we might hear that call to engage beyond – or moving through – the personal and into the wider world. There are many ways to do this. Federico Garcia Lorca uses a firehose flow of surrealist imagery to give an experience of inequity in the New York City of 1929 while the language of Muriel Rukeyser’s Poem is straightforward and her images are commonplace. Pick up Of poetry & protest : from Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin to meet and read a poem from 43 African American poets in this book filled with history, horror, truth, and beauty.
Jeez, it’s hard to follow in those footsteps, but we’ll just have to be scave. I’ve made attempts before and I offer one of those attempts here as a closing:
Blessing After the Election
by Carolyn Cushing (originally published on Plum)
Not to bless, but
desiccate instead
the hot spit
on lips shaping hate
suddenly at center.
The confused backing away,
backs now together wanting
a blessing on pins & posts,
the placards & uncertain plans,
questions, answers, the demands.
Yes, a blessing on a shaking heart breaking
seeing other hearts wanting and thirsty. Yes, a blessing
for the thirsty, for all those with lips cracking, who know now a longing,
yes, a blessing for all those who need water – yes, water – because of this fire.
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